New Book by Amanda Lotz '96, Beyond Prime Time, Includes Essay by DePauw Professor

June 27, 2009

June 27, 2009, Greencastle, Ind. — Amanda D. Lotz, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan and 1996 graduate of DePauw University, is editor of Beyond Prime Time: Television Programming in the Post-Network Era. The book, published by Routledge, includes an essay by Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, associate professor of communication at DePauw, on "The Dynamics of Local Television."

"Lotz has assembled some of television studies very best scholars, all with their fingers firmly on the pulse of a changing medium," notes Jonathan Gray, author of Television Entertainment and Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. "The result is a wonderful, must-read, must-teach collection about whats happening to the other 21 hours of television in a day."

Janet Staiger, author of Media Reception Studies and co-editor of Convergence Media History, adds, "Who knew the O.J. Simpson trial may have helped break housewives' addiction to soaps? Who knew the Today Show runs constantly on the Internet? Who knew Hannah Montana does wake-up calls? These authors know, and supply significant details about how everyday television provides ritual and event viewing for us. This is a fascinating and invaluable book for media scholars."

Dr. Lotz's previous books are The Television Will be Revolutionized and Redesigning Women: Television after the Network Era. She also has published articles in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Feminist Media Studies, Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture, Communication Theory, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Popular Film and Television and Women and Language. She also serves as book review editor for Cinema Journal.